‘JuJu’ witchcraft used to terrify children into prostitution

An alleged people trafficker cut the chest of a vulnerable 14-year-old girl with a razor during a series of “juju” witchcraft rituals aimed at terrifying young recruits into silence before selling them into prostitution across Europe, a court heard yesterday.

Osezua Osolase recruited and raped impoverished young Nigerian orphans and forced them to undergo West African rituals in which hair, nails and blood were removed to “cast a spell” over them and ensure their obedience, Canterbury Crown Court was told.

Mr Osolase, a Nigerian living in Northfleet, Kent, told one of three young victims – who overheard him trying to sell her off for €70,000 – that he had been bringing girls into Britain for 15 years, the court heard.

The 42-year-old then used a series of fake identities, addresses and falsified passports for the trafficked girls and escorted them on budget airlines to cities in Europe to work in the vice trade, said Ms Sarah Ellis, prosecuting.

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The prosecuted noted that “Those rituals are very much about invisible power. They involved the use of objects in order to curse or cast a spell. They are intended to terrify.”

The girl said that Mr Osolase cut her chest and shoulders with a razor and rubbed black powder into the wounds after she was brought to Britain suggestive that she was now carrying a curse.